Facebook, Twitter and Blackberry representatives met with Home Secretary Theresa May at lunchtime to have what ended up being a somewhat lighter discussion than expected about social networks used in relation to criminal activity.
Prime Minister David Cameron told MPs, who were forced to cut short their holidays and return to …

Warm fuzzy feelings all around, I'm sure.

I still find it instructive how this take on a supposedly free country has *cough* certain politicians *cough* prefer to call for restrictions first and meet up for some light chatter later.

Tangentially I increasingly find, on the open internet, links to pages that then require a facebook login. Apparently some people like to forget just how walled that facebook garden is. While such a thing is indubitably useful to some, posting links (to your own facebook page) on (your own) public website apparently for public consumption is a bit... annoying. Surely a simple oversight, of course, but still.

How the two are related? The lack of thinking, I suppose. Bit of a pity if that's supposed to be the species' strong point.

"Bit of a pity if that's supposed to be the species' strong point."

True observation. But haven't you noticed that the collective intelligence of a group tends to plummet dramatically once you get beyond, say, three indivduals? Unless the group has clear direction and a common goal, the patterns of thought tend to follow the paths of least resistance - ie the common and mostly primitive traits that we all have. So the recent mobs in London etc. seemed quite intelligent in the way they organised to trash the joint, whereas the official response was very unintelligent.

Socialising substituting for thinking

Groupthink is pretty stupid when left to its own devices, but is fairly simple (but not necessarily easy) to fix: Provide leadership. I don't think that the trashing was all that organised. Trained and well-led trashing operatives could've done far more damage. The most iconically burnt-out building was a carpet shop. Once that gets going, it doesn't stop, regardless of how it started.

I think the damage done says more about just how fragile our shopfronts really are. They're not mob-proof. This stands to reason because shops need to make money and so they need to attract customers, and can't afford to look like a prison or a bunker.

The official response was both blindsided (everyone was) and frankly overwhelmed. That too is a sign that things are usually pretty cosy; there normally isn't that much need for plod. The aftermath, though, is equally inevitable and shows us the weaknesses in the political system: Knee-jerking all-around. The fall-out of that is probably worse and definitely longer lasting.

So after the riots subside you need to take out a big large cluebat and make sure the political mob doesn't go too berserk in outraged posing and indignified grandstanding. Almost everything proposed will be shallowly aimed at symptoms, as nobody is willing to dig into the icky murky depths of the problems of society and do something constructive about them. It's the aftermath that's really telling on our leaders, and I have seen little to distinguish them.

Doh!

A system where rioters choose to send their location and confession directly to the police automatically and the government were thinking of banning it?

It could lead to a whole new cockney rhyming slang though.,

Originally that was supposed to defeat police spies from hearing what you were planning - now if you text "I'm going to rob currys" you get 6months, so now you will have to text if you text "I'm planning a shrubery at a branch of Ruby"

Decades ago

Sometime around 1994 the gov of the day decided to assign a plod to investigate the possible threat of the internet, which at the time mostly meant Usenet (a precursor to message boards) - his advice was to start an armed robbery discussion group for this exact purpose.

Wouldn't it be better

to restrict criminal government?

Cameron and his wobbly-chinned banker chums have done far more damage to the UK than the rioters could ever dream of doing.

If we had proper government - by the people, for the people, with a good spread of media instead of a few headbanger outlets poisoning the debate - Cameron would be stuck on his country estate shooting small furry animals.